King’s The Dead Zone (1979) marked readers’ first visit to Castle Rock, when Sheriff George Bannerman calls on Johnny Smith to use his powers to help solve a horrible series of murders. Nearly five years before, Johnny had an odd night with the Wheel of Fortune at the fair and a terrible accident that landed him in a coma for four and a half years, then woke up with the ability to touch people and objects and (sometimes) gain preternatural insight, a skill Bannerman is hoping Johnny can use to help put an end to the horrors in Castle Rock. Johnny reluctantly hears the sheriff out, agrees to see what he can do to help, and is able to identify the murderer and close the case, though there are plenty of horrible surprises and disappointments along the way. 

Sheriff Bannerman first reaches out to Johnny as a bad winter storm is blowing in, in the immediate aftermath of the rape and murder of nine year old Mary Kate Hendrasen near the bandstand in Castle Rock’s town common. Johnny is initially unwilling to get involved—life is just quieting down, after all—but he has second thoughts when he and his father watch that night’s news coverage, as he looks at a photograph of Hendraesen “grinning brashly through a heavy set of braces. Her hair was a fine white-blonde. Her dress was an electric blue. Most likely her best dress, Johnny thought sickly. Her mother put her into her best dress for her school photo” (226). Looking at the face of this murdered child and knowing that he may be able to use his power to help put an end to this violence and avoid another girl or woman meeting the same fate, Johnny cannot refuse. 

After calling Bannerman, Johnny sets out into the blizzard to see the sheriff, meeting him at Jon’s Restaurant in Bridgton, which has “great damn chili” (228), a bowl of which Bannerman is enjoying when Johnny arrives. Johnny orders a bowl as well and agrees that “You’re right. It’s good. Especially on a night like this” (229). This chili is a fleeting moment of comfort and warmth within a cold, snowy, and horrifying world. 

In Castle Rock Kitchen, Carle-Sanders has a recipe that riffs on this moment, with “Vegan Chili at Jon’s.” She does provide instructions in the notes section of the recipe for making a non-vegan version with ground beef, and this is the one I made. Mama Garraty does note the changing landscape and gentrification of Castle Rock in later years—which we’ll really dig into when we get to Elevation (2018)—but all things considered, with Sheriff Bannerman and Johnny on my mind, the vegan version just didn’t feel like it would cut it. Bannerman’s willing to risk the wrath of his ulcer to eat this chili, after all, and as a big man who likes home cooking and the simple pleasures of life, that would be a high price to pay for a meatless chili. Plus there’s the cold, the snow, the murders … and a fateful meeting between Bannerman and a dog named Cujo not too far over the horizon. Bannerman gets the real deal chili and that’s what I made. 

Carle-Sanders’ chili is dense and flavorful, chock full of beans, fresh vegetables, canned tomatoes, and layers of spices, both hot and savory. When it comes to heat, I like my spice level flavorful but not searing and I scaled back the chili powder recommendation of the recipe just a bit to hit the balance I desired. Carle-Sanders offers a wide variety of options for garnishing and topping the chili as well, which are maybe a bit beyond the simple fare of Jon’s in The Dead Zone but definitely offer some really great possibilities for livening, lightening, or intensifying the flavors. 

Carle-Sanders includes another Dead Zone-inspired recipe in Castle Rock Kitchen, for “Grand Ol’ String Beans.” These beans appear at an emotionally complicated moment in the novel, as part of the meal Johnny, his father, his former girlfriend Sarah, and her young son Denny eat when Sarah comes to visit Johnny at home after he awakens from his coma. Johnny and Sarah’s relationship was on track to be something really special the night of the fair, a route that was thrown off course when Sarah came down with a bad case of food poisoning and instead of spending the night with her as originally planned, Johnny grabbed a cab back to his own apartment, which led to the head-on collision that put him in the coma. In the intervening years, Sarah met another man (Walt), fell in love, got married, and now has young Denny, though her heart still yearns for Johnny. She comes to see Johnny and as Denny naps on the porch, Johnny and Sarah make love in the barn, with the understanding that this is a one-time encounter rather than the start of a rekindled affair. As Sarah tells Johnny, “Once will have to put paid to everything. Everything that would have been, if things hadn’t gone wrong” (204). After Denny’s nap and Johnny and Sarah’s lovemaking, Johnny’s dad comes home from work and the four of them have supper together. As the adults talk, Denny eats his “string beans, seriously, one at a time, using all six of his teeth on them” (208). Carle-Sanders’ take on these string beans is delicious, though the salt pork and shallots might be a bit much for a toddler’s little palette. They’re flavorful with a nice crunch, a good workout for those six tiny teeth. 

Both the chili and these green beans signal stolen moments, brief periods of time that offer a temporary escape from the harsh realities of the real world: a warm bowl of chili in the face of a blizzard and horrific murders, flavorful and fresh green beans to cap off the afternoon Johnny and Sarah have shared and the heartbroken echoes of what might have been if that night at the fair had only ended differently. Of course, if it had ended differently, Johnny wouldn’t have his preternatural gift (or curse) and who knows how long the murders in Castle Rock would go unsolved? There are also other threats looming just over the horizon that only Johnny and his power can counter: Greg Stillson has big plans. 

[Page numbers are from Signet paperback edition of The Dead Zone]